Congratulations to Muso Ramen for opening their second shop in the new food precinct, ROBINA KITCHENS .

They have decided to go with a pork free, chicken approach with the new shop. The Gyokai tori paitan ramen was delicious. I will concede he has taken the chicken cloudy soup one step further than my own creation. It is worthy of being the signature dish at his proud establishment as compared to mine only being good enough for a monthly limited dish.

Akira San and I take a very similar approach to our ramen. Sous vide, Yamato noodle machine, pressure cooker, all are result driven and employing innovative equipment and processes where applicable.

Wow! Never thought I would be freaking out on stage in front of company like this. I did not even plan on going to the party but lucky I made it!

When I left my corporate job six years ago, I never associated myself or ramen to be anywhere in proximity of the glitz and glam of the annual good food guide awards. But I am glad I just kept doing what I love, am very happy and honoured to be recognised by people who know food! It seriously would never have been possible without you so I would like to thank my family, the best, hard working staff in the world, and to all my loving supporting customers!

Feel so happy for regular customers Taylor of Anise for Best Bar Food, Ben Williamson of Gerrard’s, Chef of the Year, Jerome of Gauge for Best Restaurant of the Year! David at Restaurant Two for a Hat, Phillip at Ecco for two hats, and Brenden and Ryan at Esquire for Three as usual!

Also our neighbours to be, OTTO, the Best New Restaurant of the Year! Maybe a happy surprise for our landlords Dexus to have two winners in the 480 Queen building!

$371.75 NPO Kyushu Ramen Party
Headed by an ex ramen chef, Mr Hamada, they are a charity that does ramen pop ups at various disaster areas and are funded purely by donations, manned by volunteers. I was dearly hoping to be of some help to Kumamoto and Tohoku in my own way so am happy to be able to contribute to their activities as if we were there ourselves.

依頼人名

ＴＡＲＯＳ ＲＡＭＥＮ オーストラリア ブリスベン

振込先金融機関

ゆうちょ銀行

店名

一九九

取引種類

当座

口座番号

59572

受取人名

ボランテイアバンク

お振込金額

27,677 円

$1000.00 Ecuador via UNHCR
Have thought that UN refugee humanitarian organization UNHCR has a very responsible role in the aftermath of the Ecuador situation and have decided they are appropriate recipients.

Donation ReceiptAustralia for UNHCRABN: 35 092 843 322

Donation Reference: 8d38352cf4e844f

Donation Receipt:

70647

Frequency of Donation:

One-Off

Donation Amount:

$1000.00

Donation Date:

23/05/2016

$1000.00 Kumamoto via Plan International Japan
I always want to put the benefit of the children first in any disaster situation so Plan International should be able to put our funds to good use.

There are actually quite a few “little” big fans of our ramen especially the dashi driven Shio, shoyu and tsukemen. These guys actually choose us as their birthday meals over McDonald’s. I am quite flattered and am slightly moved thinking that I am contributing a bit to a future of eating well.

I try to flood my normal adult customers with information about the technique, source and passion that goes into my bowl but that kind of intellectual overload aside, the kids just simply love our flavour. Some of us adults including me, have been crammed with overwhelming flavours for a long time that we have just become so used to overloaded flavours and we just keep on wanting more stimulation or unconsciously leaning towards heavier flavours. The kids on the other hand have the most sensitive palates. They usually dislike spicy or too strong flavours. I think that is the way they should be. Their palate will naturally mature and start to want the spiciness or the stimulation as they grow older but while they are young their palate should be free to explore the various different foods within subtle natural flavours and that should hone their sense of taste and make them able to appreciate subtle differences. Once they are introduced to heavy or artificial flavours, it could be detrimental to their palate growth and building a sense of taste refined enough to enjoy the various flavours in the world, let alone growing up healthily, period. I find it intriguing and humbled that kids find the Shio or the shoyu to be a favourite in their field of subtle natural flavours.

I was home supposed to be doing office work and wandered into the kitchen to procrastinate. One thing led to another, here’s the result. Once I start, everything just sparks up inside my head and I can’t stop.

First bowl. The tare I made was sea salt, piece of konbu, pinch white pepper, ejima shoyu and teriyaki sauce (home made master sauce mirin, soy and chicken extract from dipping). Although the idea was good, and overall very tasty, the teriyaki was a bit too strong and overly sweet.

Ejima Shoyu, the farmers around Saikai in Nagasaki make their own soy sauce but this is an ancient craft about to become extinct. Only two farmers currently make the soy sauce and there are no successors.

Blending the ginger anchovy oil with the seasoning.

Soup. Pork bones (just some bone bits from a few cutlets I am going to cook for dinner) cooked for a bit less than an hour, skimmed tediously and blended with dried mackerel at the last 20min.

The second bowl. Was quite happy with this one. A clean clear broth really bringing out the beautiful niboshi (anchovy) flavour and the rough edges of the ejima shoyu. Dropped the teriyaki, went straight with the ejima and anchovy oil, this was really good.

Busy times! Ascot is getting really busy as well as the CBD temp shop. The season is getting nice for a bowl of ramen.

This week for the first time, we were short on our usual Bangalow Sweetpork so I had to take alternative measures. I usually go to Prime Specialty Meats at James and Gasworks to get the same Bangalow sweetpork but I had already bought their stock out so I needed to think quick.

I took fellow chef David Pugh’s (http://www.restaurant2.com.au) advice and got in touch with Adam Junior and Margaret of Adam’s Continental Smallgoods https://www.facebook.com/Adams-Continental-Smallgoods-137345936323214/to see if I can get some neck for my charsiu. I had been treated a sample of their Pork from David before and knew the quality was top notch and after a chat with Margaret and Adam, I am happy to reaffirm my view on quality and happy to have found a real honest gem of a smallgoods manufacturer. The Croatian family know a thing or two being in the butcher trade and Smallgoods manufacturing for 32 years and they have a direct route from Kingaroy to get only the best quality female pigs in. Adam was able to supply me with 10 rolls of the neck so I will advise to customers that during the next few days, your charsiu might be Kingaroy pork instead of Bangalow Sweetpork. I will guarantee that they are just as nice, a tad leaner and smaller but just as juicy and sweet, we have a 25 gram weight portion control standard for the charsiu serves so you won’t be disadvantaged. I hope you can accept my and restaurant Two’s selection criteria as satisfactory and accept the possibility of getting Kingaroy pork charsiu instead. It will only be for the standard soy flavoured neck charsiu and our soup and pork cheek and belly are all still Bangalow Sweetpork.

Adam gave me a tour of the deboning, spicing, fermenting, drying, smoking, aging stages and Margaret treated me to sample the wide range from chilli infused wursts, prosciutto, smoked ham, liver wurst, etc, etc. She kept on asking do you like liver? Do you like ham? Do you like bologne? Do you like Black Forest prosciutto? Hey I mustn’t tell a lie!
We talked about potential future bone supply as well as I might be tight on bones too after my 480 Queen St shop starts up and I left a happy boy out of their factory shop with a big bag of their goodies which I am about to eat with some beer.